This was a vote on an amendment by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) that would have eliminated more than $324 million in funding for the Legal Services Corporation, which provides legal aid to the poor. This amendment was offered to legislation funding the federal government (such legislation is known as a “continuing resolution, or “CR”) through September 2011, and cutting $61 billion in federal funding for many government programs. 

Duncan urged support for his amendment: “This amendment deals with the Legal Services Corporation, which is a relic from the Great Society…Folks, let me remind you that we have a trillion-and-a-half-dollar deficit spending and we have $14 trillion in debt. We can't afford to keep paying for liberal trial lawyer bailouts like the LSC. This is low hanging fruit if we are serious about cutting spending in this body.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) responded: “When the Legal Services Corporation is described as a `trial lawyer bailout,' I think it shows a total misapprehension of what Legal Services does. For many Americans, tens of thousands of Americans who are at risk of having their house foreclosed out from under them, seeking assistance from Legal Services to stay in your home, that is not a trial lawyer bailout. I don't think people who go to Legal Services because they can't afford an attorney and desperately want to stay in their home feel like they are giving some sort of bailout to trial lawyers when they go to the neighborhood Legal Services and ask for help to stay in their home.”

The House rejected this amendment by a vote of 171-259. Voting “yea” were 170 Republicans and 1 Democrat. 191 Democrats and 68 Republicans voted “nay.” As a result, the House rejected an amendment that would have eliminated more than $324 million in funding for the Legal Services Corporation.